more eaze - fine. : ALBUM REVIEW

November 16, 2015 - Full Spectrum Records

         




One of the most difficult things about creating avant-garde music is the challenge of experimenting and pushing boundaries in a way that is both un-pretentious and, well... enjoyable. For instance, if I told you that this album is an experiment in synthesizing drone and looped electronics with folk instrumentation, what is your knee jerk reaction? Any jerk with a MIDI keyboard, a looper, and a Macbook can create "experimental electronic." Only a skilled few group of artists can turn that noise into music. Over the course of fine.'s seven tracks, More Eaze, the new nom-de-music for Austin-based songwriter and producer Marcus Maurice Rubio, proves that he deserves a firm spot in that skilled group.

I first heard of and met Marcus through a mutual friend, Rick Rowley, a member of his high school band, Marcus Rubio & the Gospel Choir of Pillows. It was Rick's birthday party and MRub & the GCoP played afterwards at a little record store there in San Antonio. I was amazed. Marcus Rubio was leagues beyond any high school band leader I had ever heard. This project focused on indie rock/baroque pop and each song showed Marcus' incredible ear for melody, understanding of music theory, and general songwriting prowess.

From More Eaze's Discogs page

I must admit, it's been a few years since I've listened to one of Marcus' projects. He has pushed himself well beyond the genre of indie rock into some difficult and pretty avant-garde places. As his Bandcamp describes, "He's spent his time exploring musical corners as distant as glitch, noise, folk, R&B and Wandelweiseresque stasis." (Definitely had to look up that last one.) 

All of these influences are what you'll find weaved together wonderfully in the glorious, deconstructionist tapestry that is fine. The album's main attraction is the titular "fine," a 5-part, 24-minute piece, broken into 5 tracks, that covers the gamut of More Eaze's influences. "fine pt.1" begins with a brightly dissonant, oscillating organ drone, building tension over the few minutes that it lasts. Slowly, rays of colorful sound tear through the drone, here a little, there a little, fading out at random intervals, oscillating between triumphant and malfunctioning, but always under control, until the whole thing breaks apart into "fine pt.2."

This second track as well as "fine pt.3," which it bleeds into, feature a repeating loop of guitar and a down-tuned, indecipherable vocal sample in the same vein as the looped plunderphonics of Tim Hecker, or Daniel Lopatin's work in Oneohtrix Point Never, that is oddly catchy. This is punctuated by plucked guitar chords which fade into the beginnings of the straight-up folk jam of "fine pt.4." The crisply produced acoustic instrumentation serves as a well-timed palate-cleanser. Finally, the wash of styles, influences, drones, and instruments resolves itself in the finale, "fine pt.5," which is the only place on the album where we hear More Eaze's voice, which is so enjoyable to listen to, especially with its electronic warp, that I really wish there was more of it here.

From More Eaze's Bandcamp

The next side of the tape kicks off with the album's best: "sure." The track is an absolute treat music theoretically. A banjo plucks a basic pattern of tonic, dominant, tonic, dominant which is bent into other strange modes and discordant melodies which, just when it seems like More Eaze is just screwing around aimlessly, resolve themselves with incredible skill. This, too, is deconstructed into a percussion-punctuated drone. Closer "ok" requires patience to get the pay-off, experimenting with those concepts of stasis and motion pioneered by Edition Wandelweiser records, but that last minute of a half is just as energetic and colorful as the opener, "fine pt.1," giving the album closure, even a conceptual feeling.

All in all, this is some of the most well-orchestrated, arresting experimental electronic I've heard in a while, easily on par with the new offerings from Oneohtrix Point Never or Jamie xx this year. Chances are this release was nowhere on your radar, so go check out More Eaze's Bandcamp, support a talented artist by downloading it for as little as a dollar, and enjoy the kaleidoscope of sound. 

OVERALL SCORE: 9.0
more eaze – fine.
1. fine pt.1 2. fine pt.2 3. fine pt.3 4. fine pt.4 5. fine pt.5 6. sure 7. ok	O!HTT's COLORFUL SCORING SYSTEM 9-10 Holy. Crap. You must hear this song. One of the best of the year. 7-8 I'm so glad I have ears so that I can listen to this wonderful song. 5-6 Yeah, it's passable. Contributes to the vibe of the album, but not anything to write home about. 3-4 Ehh very mediocre or seriously flawed, there's a lot better music out there, or even on this album. 0-2 Good gravy, why must this song exist? One of the worst things that will enter your ears this year.

Tiny Reviews: Beach House, Deradoorian, The Sword, Destroyer, Panda Bear

Beach House - Depression Cherry

Oh man, what a disappointment. You'll remember from my "Get Pumped!" feature from August that this was one of the the albums I was looking forward to in the second half of the year. Beach House had enchanted my heart and ear with their beautiful, retro style of dream pop and Victoria Legrand's gorgeous alto voice. 2010's Teen Dream, my first Beach House record and definitely the zenith of their sound, hooked me in and set the bar high for whatever they would put out next. After 2012's Bloom, which was essentially more of the same, I was ready to see what else the band could do, and I definitely wasn't the only one getting tired of the same sparkly, dreamy keyboards and chord progressions.

Well, wouldn't you know it, with Depression Cherry, we get Teen Dream III: Revenge of the Synth (or Bloom II: Attack of the Clones). I didn't think they could do it or would do it, but they have taken the exact same songs with the exact same sounds and made the exact same record. I swear I've heard that electronic hi-hat in "Space Song" in fourteen other Beach House songs. And I'm not exaggerating. That's basically all there is to say about this album. Yes, it's beautiful sounding. Yes, it was interesting the first time. In fact, if you've never listened to Beach House before and are interested, this wouldn't be a bad place to start. But Teen Dream would be better and you'd get everything they give you here (five years later...)

Definitely Check Out: "Sparks"

OVERALL SCORE: 5.7
Beach House – Depression Cherry

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Deradoorian - The Expanding Flower Planet

A very surprising and fresh release. Deradoorian is the truncated nome-de-music of singer-songwriter Angel Deradoorian, who is basically exclusively known for her incredible vocal performance in Dirty Projectors' masterpiece Bitte Orca. You know, "Two Doves?" She sang that. This performance landed her rather unlikely spots on recent Flying Lotus and the Roots albums.

You may have, like me, held the assumption that Angel Deradoorian was only a folky, acoustic singer-songwriter type, especially after listening to her first solo album Mind Raft. One of the best qualities of The Expanding Flower Planet is how it absolutely destroys that assumption. There is hardly an acoustic or even folk song in sight.

In a lot of ways, Deradoorian's songwriting here continues the technically complex and often odd compositions of her former Dirty Projectors' bandleader Dave Longstreth. Opener "A Beautiful Woman" certainly shows it, as well as "The Expanding Flower Planet," "Grow" and my personal favorite "Your Creator." The latter sounds to me like it could be the beginning of a Battles song, it's that good.

If the whole album was as good as these four tracks, it would be one of my favorites of the year. Unfortunately, the other tracks on the album, while still technical and ambitious, are really boring and fall flat. "Komodo" and "The Eye" in particular come to mind. All in all, it's an extremely praiseworthy album with some incredible tracks that any Dirty Projectors, tUnE-yArDs, Glasser, The Knife, or Bjork fans will enjoy

Definitely Check Out: "A Beautiful Woman," "Your Creator"

OVERALL SCORE: 8.1
Deradoorian – The Expanding Flower Planet

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The Sword - High Country

At their best, The Sword have been a band that draw the best of 60's heavy metal, prog rock, and sludge metal and bring it into one place. Though grounded and often bogged down in very accessible and digestible blues progressions and melodies, what has set them apart from other bands similarly bogged down is their ear for writing good riffs, prog sensibilities, and interesting fantasy-inspired lyrics.

Unfortunately, on High Country, they shed all of these strengths and deliver an album that is almost entirely made up of entry level, dime-a-dozen blues rock. It's not even metal at this point; it's so watered down, this record could make for a bad Wolfmother or Birds of Avalon B-side collection. Some songs, like "Suffer No Fools," do exhibit their penchant for good riff writing, and the production remains sparkling clean and crisp as a bowl of Rice Crispies. But it's not enough to make this record really stand out in anyway.

BUT, as I said, it's almost entirely made of this bland blues rock, and if it was it wouldn't be that bad. The rest of the album, though? Well, I guess they realized they were writing themselves into a rut like this. So what did they do? Rather than scrapping these and writing actually good songs, they devoted their creative energies to completely awkward meanderings in random genres:

• synth rock on "Seriously Mysterious" 
• ska/rock-with-a-brass-section on "Early Snow" 
• and... hip hop on opener "Unicorn Farm"??? 

I don't know what is going on with that track but it makes me want to cry. And don't even get me started on these songs' lyrics...

Please, The Sword. What on earth happened?

Definitely Check Out: "Suffer No Fools," "Unicorn Farm" (just because it's that bad)

OVERALL SCORE: 4.2
The Sword – High Country

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Destroyer - Poison Season

You may have heard of Destroyer in the way I did: through frontman Dan Bejar's membership in the New Pornographers

However, that connection won't help you any on Poison Season: the two could hardly sound further apart on the indie spectrum. The New Pornographers are fun, bright, pop-y, and inexplicably tongue-in-cheek, like everything's a joke, including their band name.

Poison Season, though, is serious, heady, adult-ish, and inexplicably sober, even in its energetic and odd moments.

I have hardly heard an album that is as mature musically as this one: Dan Bejar has crafted a rich blend of adult contemporary, jazz, Latin, Springsteen-esque folk rock, and Billy Joel-esque poet rock. The lyrics give credence to calling Bejar a rock poet too: the beginning, middle, and end tracks, the three "Times Square's" feature the lines, "The writing on the wall/ Wasn't writing at all/ Just forces of nature/ In love with a radio station/ You can follow a rose wherever it grows/ Or you could fall in love with Times Square."

I'm still dissecting this beautiful, incredibly dense piece of music. But that density is one of the album's best characteristics. In fact, it's so dense, it took me 3 or 4 listens to feel any connection at all, like listening to Classical music is for me. But now, I'm finding the fun of this album is peeling back more layers with each listen. This is a release that any music lover, especially a lover of the above mentioned genres, should not pass up. Just be patient with it.

Definitely Check Out: "Times Square," "Dream Lover," "Solace's Bride"

OVERALL SCORE: 8.4
Destroyer – Poison Season

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Panda Bear - Crosswords EP

My honest opinion and review? I don't remember a single part of it. I listened to it four times and I can't tell you how one song goes.

This was essentially the case for me on Panda Bear vs. The Grim Reaper (PBVGR), the mother LP from which this EP comes. The dude's from Animal Collective, and Panda Bear in particular, are sliding into a very sad comfort zone. They blazed musical territory before them for their entire careers until the monumental Merriweather Post Pavilion, and since then, they've halted in the realm of bloopy, blippy psychedelic electronica. The fact that each LP since then (Centipede Hz, Avey Tare's Down There and Slasher Flicks, and Panda Bear's Tomboy and PBVGR) have had standout tracks shows that the guys are certainly talented and have it in them.

On releases like this, though... I can't help but feel Panda Bear's on auto-pilot. I sincerely hope they find their way out of this for the upcoming new Animal Collective album

Definitely Check Out: "No Man's Land" I guess?

OVERALL SCORE: 5.1
Panda Bear – Poison Season